


Something More

by CaptainOzone



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur's POV, Bromance, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Magic Revealed, POV First Person, Post-5x13, Post-Episode: s05e13 The Diamond of the Day, Reincarnation, Reveal, Tearjerker, from the beginning to the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-08
Updated: 2013-03-08
Packaged: 2018-04-08 03:20:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4288767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainOzone/pseuds/CaptainOzone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Loyalty and devotion lead to bravery. Bravery leads to the spirit of self-sacrifice. The spirit of self-sacrifice creates trust in the power of love." -Morihei Ueshiba</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something More

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published on ff.net, 03/08/2013. Dedicated to Ocean Mint Leaves, who introduced me to the song that inspired this fic.
> 
> (Disclaimer: I don't own the song "Something More" by Ryan Malcolm.)

_  
Looking back now it's so clear to me_

_That you were sent to shape my destiny_

_'Cause there were times when I was ready to walk away,_

_But you gave me strength to face another day_

* * *

I see him walking past me, very obviously, very determinedly avoiding my gaze, and I can’t resist.

After what happened yesterday, how can I _not_ confront him again?

My sense of pride and the desire for a good laugh demands it, after all. Or so I try to convince myself…because I do not know what to make of the other reasons—if they can be _called_ reasons; I do not know _what_ they are—for calling out to him.

It doesn’t take much to get him to stop dead in his tracks and turn to greet me. No, the moment I see him walking toward me, the moment I recognize the firm set of his jaw and the sharp light in his eyes, the moment I recognize that he isn’t avoiding me because he is afraid or ashamed but because he wants to be what Gaius often calls _‘the bigger man,’_ I _know_ that it wouldn’t take much, and even though I now also know that _this_ is Gaius’ new ward and that Gaius had probably given him a right talking to about who I am and why he needs to keep that idiot head of his down—

Ha! From what I can deduce from yesterday’s little confrontation, holding his tongue is not one of his strong suits.

Neither is submission… Nor is ‘running away.’

I _know_ that will get under his skin, and oh, am I going to _enjoy_ this.

“Thank God,” I jeer when he finally responds. “I thought you were deaf as well as dumb.”

Turning to face me, he smiles impishly…and calls me an ass.

For the second time.

I wonder why I’m not more offended or…even why I’m not remotely _angry_. I am the _prince_ , and he’s just—well, judging from state of his clothes and the lilt in his accent, he must have no higher status than that of a farm boy from an obscure village at the edge of Camelot’s borders.

Maybe that’s exactly why I am impressed—there, I have admitted it, and Morgana can go and…be smug all over the castle for all I care—I _am_ impressed. I am impressed by his audacity to think that he can say things like that to _me_ and get away with it. I am impressed that he…doesn’t seem fazed by my insults and that, no matter how sharp the barb I send at him—despite all appearances and presumptions of his idiocy—he can throw one back equally as sharp.

And he seems to think that _he_ can have the last word?

No, I don’t think so.

He really has _no_ idea who he’s dealing with, and it is even more evident that he has not learned a single thing from his time in the dungeons and the stocks _or_ from the scolding from Gaius when he notices Bors and Kay and brings my _father_ into it.

As if _I_ need _any_ protection from them _or_ my father.

I bark a laugh, and remembering the rather pathetic punch he threw at me yesterday and how I effortlessly used his energy against him and brought him to his knees, I feel the need to remind him, “I can take you apart with one blow.”

When he, eyes glinting with humor, says with absolute sincerity that he can take me apart in _less_ than that, my eyebrows rise, and I snort and critically appraise his lean frame and gangly limbs. Honestly, the boy looks as though he could be blown over by a good gust of _wind_ , and he thinks…? His hands, I admit, may be strong from labor and hardship, but they are not the hands of a man who can hold a weapon correctly, much less _use_ a weapon correctly.

He _must_ have a deathwish.

“You sure?” I ask skeptically.

Judging by growing snickers emitting from behind me, Bors and Kay must be grinning like hounds on the hunt, and when the boy removes his jacket in response to the challenge I posed, I toss back my head and laugh.

Is that how this is going to be? Fine. Who am I to stop him from making a fool of himself?

Without prompting, Bors hands me a mace, and I toss it at the fool before me. “Here you go, big man.”

I am not completely surprised when he fumbles with the weapons and drops it, but he doesn’t have the decency to even look _embarrassed_ by his gracelessness. In fact, he looks more annoyed and resigned than anything, and surprisingly enough, that amuses me more than his fumble does.

Whirling the mace around my head, I take a few steps forward, and when I notice that he is not intimidated and that instead his strange dusky blue eyes watch and follow the path of the spiked ball, as if to judge and gauge the weapon and the way in which I handle it, I halt and boast, “I warn you; I’ve been trained to kill since birth.”

“Wow,” he responds, unimpressed. “And how long’ve you been training to be a prat?”

I blink once in incredulity, and by the second blink, a strange sort of smile has turned the corners of my lips upwards. Before I can stop them, the words spill from my mouth, and the lack of spite in my tone betrays me. “You can’t address me like that.”

“I’m sorry.” When he looks down, I begin to smirk, but when he raises his eyes again, that cheeky grin of his spreading across his face, it becomes clearly obvious that I should have known better.

“How long have you been training to be a prat, _my lord_?”

It may have been the aggravating way in which he says my title or the mischievous glint in his eyes that finally does it, but while both of these facts definitely contribute to the fresh wave of annoyance bubbling in me like stew in a hot cauldron, what really does me in is that little mocking _bow_ of his.

I make the first swing.

It’s barely seconds into the fight that he ends up _losing_ his mace. I’m not entirely sure _how_ that is possible, seeing as he hadn’t even the chance to _swing_ it, but I have no reason to complain, and I give chase because if there was ever anyone who needed to be retaught a lesson or two about _manners_ and the appropriate way in which to behave around a _prince_ , it was _him._

For what he lacks in strength and grace, he sure makes up for in _speed_ , and of course it would be that the chain of my mace wraps around a pair of sickle blades hanging from a stall when he is on the ground and is completely at my mercy. I tug it free and assume that Irony just _loves_ me this morning, but it isn’t until after I walk into a crate and bruise my shin and smash more than _some_ fruit and _trip_ that I come to the realization that making the decision to spar with maces in the Lower Town wasn’t really the best and brightestof ideas.

Because somehow, someway—no thanks to the bloody clutter of the market place, I assure you—my mace finds its way into his hand, and as his eyes blaze defiantly, I don’t suppose he’s backing down.

In fact, he asks me if _I_ want to _give up_.

And it bothers me because like _hell_ I’m submitting to _him_ and like _hell_ I’m going to let him think he has won when it is nothing but _luck_ that placed _my_ mace into _his_ hand because he is the fool who _lost_ the other one and like _hell_ I was going to walk away from this _without_ giving him a damn good kick up the ass and like _hell_ I was _giving up_.

Pendragons _never_ give up; I’m almost insulted that he would even consider that one ever would.

“Do _you_?” I counter cleverly, eyes glued to the mace.

He never makes a swing at me. Not once. Not even as he repeats loudly, “ _Do you?_ Do you want to give up?”

Somehow, I find that significant, and not for the first time, I wonder about him—about the kind of man he is, about who he is and _why_ he is.

Because I have never met someone like him before, and there is _something…_

The bucket—like the rope, like the crate, and like all the other damn things lying about all over the place—springs out of nowhere and sends me sprawling. Again.

I never see what distracts him, but wrapping my fingers around a nearby broom handle and grinning diabolically, I take advantage of it and whack him in the backside, the gut, and the head hard enough to knock him off his feet and make him groan.

And I win.

Winning had never felt so glorious.

I exchange victorious smirks with Kay and Bors, who laugh openly at the boy on the ground, and I glow with satisfaction. However, it isn’t until the guards begin to pull him up, his eyes slightly dazed, his hair in disarray, and his over-large shirt hanging awkwardly about his shoulders, that I realize that…

I don’t _want_ to win. I don’t _want_ it to be as easy as that.

And something hits me. A feeling. A feeling like the tip of a bird’s wing brushing against my skin and a feeling simultaneously like that of petrifying fear…and like that of seeing a newborn foal take its first steps. It jolts through me like a lightning bolt, but it is as subtle as the flutter of eyelashes when one blinks, and for a moment, my heartbeat falters at the terror of it.

Only to restart at the hope of it.

And before I can name it, before I can even assure myself that it is there…

It fades and is gone.

“Wait,” I command, my brow furrowing. “Let him go.”

The guards release his arms, and to my interest, he stands without swaying, stormy eyes snapping back with a—dare I say— _intelligent_ light and scanning me with a mixture of surprise, confusion, and curiosity.

Without taking my eyes from him, I add slowly, “He may be an idiot, but he’s a brave one.”

 _And there’s something about him_ …

It isn’t until I walk away with my two knights in tow that Kay rounds on me, quirks a brow, and asks with mocking smirk, “Something about him?”

Yes, it is only then that I realize that I had said it aloud.

I shrug and make a joke to brush him off because there is no way I can explain. Not this _._ Notthis…something _more_ just lying beneath the surface, a surface I cannot yet breach or hope to touch. Not this realization that…this had been no chance meeting and that something _big_ was happening and that I am somehow at the very center of it. Not this _contentment_ in knowing that there _is_ someone out there who… _challenges_ you and who doesn’t _care_ that your father is the most powerful man in the Five Kingdoms and who _doesn’t_ grovel at your feet in order to gain your favor. Not the strange joy of finding that one person who is your polar opposite and yet who is exactly as you are…or who you want to be, that one person who has the potential to be either your greatest enemy or your greatest friend…

And with all of these complexities connecting and leading to _him_ , it sounds even more ridiculous than I thought it would because he’s an idiot and he’s a peasant and any other prince would look at him and see nothing more than an insolent git, and despite what I had said upon releasing him, despite the something _more_ I saw in him, despite the fact that he _impressed_ me by daring to insult me, I dismiss _whatever_ all of _this_ is as just that.

Ridiculous.

I blink, and as I snip the few strands of belief tying it all together, whatever connection I think I have to this boy is buried. Not necessarily lost, not necessarily forgotten…

I just don’t _understand_.

And rolling my eyes, I tell Kay it is nothing.

And even though it _is_ something, I do not lie because it is nothing I understand and nothing I ever suppose I will ever understand, and if that is true, nothing is necessary _to_ understand after all, is there?

At my response, his eyebrow seems to soar even higher, almost rivaling that of Gaius’ the last time I lied about an injury and the amount of pain I was in, and after scanning me with intense teal eyes, the haughty humor fades from his face, and it is with a newfound quizzical timbre in his voice that he points out, “You remembered his name.”

* * *

_I don't think that I can tell you what this means to me_

_But here I am, it's so hard to believe_

_That I'm standing here, that I've come this far_

_But you always said, ‘have faith in who you are’_

_…_

_As long as you are here with me, I know that I can be something more_

* * *

When my father appointed him as my manservant, I had protested. Of course I had. I needed a servant who was obedient and who didn’t annoy me by simply standing in my presence and who didn’t feel the need to fill every silence with mindless chatter and who woke up on time to wake _me_ up on time and who actually performed his duties without being reminded and who actually performed them _well_ and who was a servant and nothing more.

I had been wrong.

I hadn’t needed a servant; I had needed _him._

And I do not know when it happened.

I do not know when _his_ opinion of all opinions came to matter so much to me—when one look of disapproval or (God _forbid_ ) disappointment from him became enough to make my heart plummet to my feet, when it suddenly became so much more painful to bear a _single_ look from him than it did to bear any amount of my father’s harsh preaching, when one nod, one smile, one flash of approval in his stormy blue eyes became enough for me to feel like I can die happy knowing that I have done him proud.

I do not know when it became so… _normal_ for him to be there, when it became so normal for him, a _servant_ , to ride with me and my most trusted and skilled companions as though he were one of them, one of _us_. I do not know when I ultimately forgot that there was ever a time he _wasn’t_ there or when I came to realize I _wanted_ him there and would be _damned_ if I left him behind.

Not that he’d _ever_ allow me to leave him behind.

It has become so natural, so _right_ that I realize that I do not—and never _did_ —necessarily _care_ when it happened. All that matters is that it _did_ happen and that, when I think about it, I realize _how_ it happened.

Even in my darkest hours, he stands by my side, always offering a shoulder to lean on and words of wisdom and faith that dispel even the worst of the shadows. Even in Camelot’s direst times of need, he braves evil and follows me into battle to fight against the most monstrous of our world, and he…embodies all the assets of a man pure of heart, strong of soul, and incorruptible of spirit, all of the assets I expect my knights to uphold.

His loyalty—that knows no bounds…and there are no barriers that stretch far enough or high enough to contain it. His compassion and determination? Those, too, are qualities I never fail to _see_ in him everyday, no matter the mood he is in.

He was the first to accept me for _me_ , the first who knew of my love for Guinevere, the first who made me realize exactly what kind of king I wanted to be for my people, the first I sought out when troubled or confused or doubtful, the first who ever came to know me better than I knew myself…

He is a fool, he is an idiot, and he is every bit as cheeky and rude and clumsy as the day I first met him, and even though our bickering and teasing has never ceased, a strong mutual respect has developed and grown, and I do not know where I would be without his wisdom or his faith in me.

He isn’t just _any_ servant. Not just _any_ man.

Along the way, he became a _friend._

And even though he seems to believe I am oblivious, I am not. When you’ve known someone for as long as I have him, when you’ve become soattuned to his movements and emotions that you can sometimes hardly differentiate them from your own, you notice these things.

And the very second I walk into my chambers and see my pristine gear lying ready and _organized_ on the dining table and a young man with his blue eyes on his boots and hands clamped behind his back, I _know_ something is wrong. There has been something off about him for the past few days, but this…

I’m pleased to see everything ready for our departure of course, but his unnatural punctuality and job-well-done leaves a dreadful taste in my mouth and makes my gut sink, and even though he responds naturally enough to my teasing, in which I hide a compliment, my suspicions are almost immediately confirmed.

He calls me ‘Sire’ twice. _Twice_ in two _successive_ sentences.

There is something _very_ wrong.

Knowing of his tendency to be tight-lipped and cryptic, I leave no doubt that I know something is going on when I prod teasingly, “So what’re you after?”

“After?”

He seems genuinely confused, and I roll my eyes and further accuse him of being the worst servant in the history of the world so that he knows _very_ well that lying is not going to get him anywhere and that he had better bloody come out and tell me what the hell’s the matter because I am damn _certain_ that there _is_ something the matter.

When he sobers and turns his eyes to the floor again and when a shadow crosses his face and his shoulders fold inward, I’m worried, more worried than I was before, and I suddenly wonder if I want to know, if I _want_ to push him to tell me.

Another ominous wave of dread washes over me, but I hide it behind another joke about his possible desire for money or time off.

I do not miss the pained way in which he says my name or the way in which his tone wavers. He doesn’t look at me when he speaks, but I catch it.

 _Your journey_.

 _My_ journey?

After hesitating and swallowing hard, he turns, and even before he says a word, I see it in his eyes, eyes full of regret and pain and, just hidden within the depths, writhing like a nest of snakes and as tumultuous as a hurricane…an unsettling _fear_.

“I’m afraid I won’t be coming with you. Not this time.”

He apologizes, but I cannot hear. All I see is the raw fear in his eyes and feel ice-cold claws puncture and tear at my heart…because for all the times that I have seen him afraid, which is few and far between, courageous in the face of all adversity, he has stood before his demons and has faced them unflinchingly, unwaveringly.

This fear is not like that of the past. _This_ fear— _I_ am suddenly afraid. More afraid than I have ever been in my entire life.

He doesn’t _run away_. He has _never_ run away, and he has _always_ ridden out with me, even when I specifically order him to stay home. He has never _once_ left my side. Not when the dragon attacked. Not when witches and immortal armies and traitorous uncles conquered Camelot. _Never_ in all of the ten _years_ he has been in my service, never in the decade that he and I became more than master and servant, king and subject, has he _left_ my side at a time like this.

My fear threatens to crawl up my throat, but when he _lies_ to me about why he is not coming with me, disappointment _crushes_ me, metaphorically dragging me to my knees with the weight of it.

“Vital supplies,” I repeat quietly.

“It’s not that I’m—”

“No, no,” I say, averting my gaze so that he cannot see the pain, the _hurt_ , the confusion. “It’s fine.”

But it’s _not_ fine. It is _far_ from fine.

Because this is the man who inspired me to be more than I ever could hope to be on my own, whose bravery—be it the wise, faithful, just way in which he conveys his advice and his decisions (for there is no small amount of courage needed when standing up for what is right and for sticking to a decision you’ve made), the reckless, rash, insolent cheek, or the protective, determined, and self-sacrificing valor—that often inspired me to find my ownand that was more often than not the very _source_ of my own.

“It’s fine; I understand.”

But it’s _not_ fine, and I _don’t_ understand.

Because this is the man I had come to admire above all others and whom I had come to see as not only a friend, but also a _brother_ on which I could _always_ depend.

“Arthur,” he breathes, voice torn.

Brow furrowed, I lock eyes with him—sea on storm—and I say, “All those jokes about you being a coward…I never really meant any of them. I always thought you were the bravest man I’ve ever met.”

He stares, blue eyes flooding with shame and pain, and I cannot look at them, shattered and broken as they are, for a second longer.

“Guess I was wrong.”

And I do not see him for days, even though I think of him and I _hear_ him whispering warnings and wisdom and apologies in my mind, and when I _do_ see him again, my whole world—with a single confession and a dragon of embers, my whole world unravels…only to stitch itself back together far more quickly than I ever would have imagined.

Because even as I weaken and find my ability to concentrate diminishing and my acceptance of the inevitability of my death growing, I watch him, and I listen to him, and magic or no magic, secret or no secret, it isn’t a traitor or a betrayer who guides me to the Lake of Avalon. No, I rest in the hands ofmy _friend,_ and after seeing his magic, after hearing him speak from the deepest part of his heart, it turns out that I was right after all.

He is the bravest man I have ever met….and will ever have the fortune of meeting.   

* * *

_I wanna take this time to thank you for the love you gave._

_From this moment, you've got to know_

_…_

_And now's the time you're gonna see,_

_From this moment, you've got to know_

* * *

_Just—just hold me. Please._

Now, at this moment, what I regret most…it isn’t that I won’t be able to tell Guinevere how much I love her; it isn’t that I won’t be able to clap my knights’ shoulders one last time and tell them how _honored_ I am to have fought alongside them, how honored I am to have known every last one of them. And it isn’t that I regret that I’m going to be leaving my people and kingdom—the kingdom he and I built—behind or all the things left undone...

I know that Camelot will be well taken care of—I am leaving my golden kingdom in the most capable of hands, after all—and I know everything will be alright.

No, what I regret most is that I hadn’t said these words to him _before_ now—the end, the very end—and that he never knew just how much I meant them _before_ this had happened, that he never knew just how much…

_You’re not going to say goodbye._

No, no, I will not say goodbye. Never goodbye.

Not to him. Never him.

But I will tell him. I will tell him what I should have told him many years ago, what I had neglected to tell him over the years… what I needed to tell him, especially after he revealed his magic to me and after I finally, _finally_ understood.

Even now I can hear his words echoing in my ear.

_Only for you._

Tears cling to his eyelashes, sobs build in his chest, and he trembles with the force of his grief, but despite everything, his eyes fasten onto mine—eyes that always see, eyes that I had grown to depend upon for my daily dose of humor, for courage, for wisdom, for faith and strength, eyes that had a place in almost every single one of the memories that mattered and even most of those that didn’t…

The memories flash across my vision in no particular pattern, no particular order, but nonetheless, I see everything. I see it all—all the sacrifice, the pain, the bravery, the friendship, the teasing. I see the boys we once were and the men we became—together—and every step of the journey in between, and there’s only one thing I can say to him now, something I’ve never said to him before.

_Thank you._

Even as his form blurs above me, I can see the glowing, crystalline blue of his eyes, and even as a fond smile twitches at the corners of my lips, my hand finds its way to his unmanageable ebony hair, an action not unlike that of an older brother, who, beaming with pride, amusement, exasperation or any mixture of the three—who, unable to express his love in mere words, ruffles the younger’s hair…

I regret that it is the last time I’ll be able to do it… and that, this time, I won’t be able to see that goofy grin of his light up his whole face in response.

He leans into my hand, as if to prolong the familiar contact, because he _understands_ that it is my way. My way of calling him brother, my way of assuring him that, wherever I may go, I will miss him, I will remember him, and I will always be with him, my way of reminding him that whatever may have happened between us, whatever quarrels we’ve been in, whatever pain we’ve caused each other and whatever regrets we may have for all the things left unsaid… for all the good times in between, I wouldn’t have changed it for the world.

Not a single second of it.

And I sink back, my hand falls from his head, eyelids slide closed…

I sleep in my brother’s arms.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

And I can’t help but feel _whole_ when it is in his arms I reawaken. I’m disoriented and cold as hell, but I am _complete_.

Because it is _he_ that is there. Of course it is. It always was and always would be.

He is still crying, but… even as he cries, hysterical laughter and hiccups bubble from his lips, and he smiles that toothy, lopsided smile unique to _him_ , his eyes alight with no small amount of awed disbelief and unbridled joy.

I don’t understand.

He’s mumbling some nonsenseabout _you’re back; you’re_ back, but I’m not quite sure what he means—or if I’m hearing right at all—because I _feel_ alive and strong and _not dead_ ; everything is clear and beautiful and light, and there is no pain from the fragment of dragon-born blade in my chest, no lightheadedness or loss of vision or shortness of breath, no gentle beckoning of peace and _rest_ …

Had I even _left_?

I think that perhaps he _had_ been able to save me, and for a second, I am stunned at the command he has over his gift, the power he holds, and once again, I feel…humbled that so great a man has chosen to serve _me_.

But…even as my brows furrow in my confusion, I see it. Time, more time than I can fathom, has passed, and I—I _had_ died. I must have. I can see it in the weight that has rested on his shoulders; I can see the ancient weariness and sadness that he has borne. I can see the experiences that have aged him in the subtlest of ways, the signs of new scars on his body, the signs of new trials coloring his soul, but for all that has changed, it is _him_.

 _He_ hadn’t changed.

It had been my last order to him, I remember—the very last—and considering his tendency to completely disobey my orders—the self-sacrificing _idiot_ —I am touched. No, not touched. _Stricken_. I am stricken because he didn’t just follow my orders: he took them to _heart_.

His eyes tell me that he lived by my words and that there was no greater way he remembered me, honored me than by living, breathing, _being_ those words every second of every day.

He stares at me as if to convince himself that I’m real, and disturbed by the dazedness in his gaze and the stark loneliness I now see all too clearly, I reach up to ruffle his wind-blown raven hair because _I am here_ and everything will be _alright_ and really, there is no need for these hysterics and tears and strange laughter and odd stares after all, is there?

Because somehow, I’m here, as is he. I realize that this fact probably should bother me more than it does, but I am _glad_. I am _so glad_.

The teasing words and smirk that I want to greet him with soon slips from my lips when he leans into my hand as he had before and murmurs my name in a voice thick and rough with joyful tears—it is a voice that had once too often grated on my nerves, a voice that had made me laugh and cry, a voice that had soothed my doubts and fears and had challenged my beliefs and choices; it is a voice that would no doubt do so again, for as long as I might need it…

I would _always_ need it.

And it may have even been that my smile rivaled his when I, for what I will soon realize is the first time in _centuries_ , breathe his name.

“Merlin.”

He starts at the sound of his name, blinking owlishly, and his arms stiffen around me. Without warning, he maneuvers from under my body and tugs me to my feet, and before I can chase away the black spots dancing in my vision or steady my wobbly stance or really consider what the hell he is wearing or why the hell we’re soaking _wet_ , his arms wrap around me, and he squeezes me for all that he’s worth.

For a moment, I’m so overwhelmed by the suddenness of his actions and the intensity of his emotion that cannot find it in me to speak or move a muscle as his tears spill on my shoulder. When he begins to babble incomprehensibly into the back of my neck, I hesitantly pat his back and allow him to break down in my arms and release whatever it is he had been keeping bottled inside.

I hold him until his trembling ceases and breathing slows, and I attempt softly, “Merlin?”

A new flood of tears and another bout of hyperventilating seems imminent, but to get and _keep_ his attention, to make him look at me, I say more a little more forcefully, a little more sternly, “Merlin.”

Drawing back, he wipes his tear-stained cheeks with the back of his hand, and he focuses on me with intensely attentive eyes, eyes that screamed his loyalty, his love, his willingness to listen.

Brow furrowing, I search his face for an explanation, for an answer that wasn’t ‘ _magic’_ (because knowing Merlin, I would not put it past him to give me that frustratingly cryptic answer and smile impishly all the while) to at least one of the many questions sprouting and tumbling through my mind…

His smile is returning, and with glowing eyes full of gratitude and glee, he finally says as though it explains everything, “You _remember_.”

And somehow, it _does_ explain everything to me.

I remember Camelot. I remember Guinevere and the knights. I remember _him_. I remember his quirks and his habits more than I can remember my own, and I remember his smiles and his frowns and how each of them, no matter how subtle the differences, _meant_ something. I remember everything we have been through, everything that he has done for me. I remember the dragon, the Dorocha, Excalibur, Camlann, the death of Morgana, and all the bandits, beasts, and battles in between. I remember his ability to reduce me to a pouting child with a witty retort and his ability to lift me above the clouds with a mere nod of approval.

But above all, I remember his bravery…not only in the sense that he, always and forever at my side, rushes headfirst into danger without any regard for his own life, not only in the sense that he has magic and has hidden it his entire life and that he _has waited for me_ —after all this time—but also in the sense that he—he was once the only one who had had the gall to stand up to an arrogant prince.

I remember it all, and…even though he is my junior by a few years, even though he is—was my manservant and was born of modest blood, there was and never will be another man I aspire to be more than him. 

 “Merlin,” I say slowly, smiling lightly as I punch his shoulder, “how could I possibly _forget_?”

* * *

_“He may be an idiot, but he’s a brave one.”_ –Prince Arthur, 1x01

 _“I always thought you were the bravest man I have ever met.”_ –King Arthur, 5x12

It is literal. 


End file.
